Medalists Reunite on ‘Shared Gold’

After the pairs figure skating controversy that threatened to overwhelm the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, the thought of simply doing away with the sport’s judges is tempting. Wouldn’t it be nice to watch this year’s gold medal co-winners perform without the specter of vote trading?

Tonight’s “Shared Gold: Skating Champions Return to the Ice” (8 p.m. NBC) presents Jamie Sale and David Pelletier of Canada and Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze of Russia in just such an exhibition. No competition, other than perhaps the instinct athletes naturally possess. No pressure either, other than skating on a two-hour special on live TV in Canada last month.

NBC’s hourlong “Shared Gold” offers some of the routines from that Canadian broadcast with behind-the-scenes footage of the skaters and interviews about their feelings during the Olympic judging fiasco.

The special keeps the spotlight mostly on the skating, with reprisals of the pairs’ Salt Lake City programs and some numbers that let the skaters’ personalities emerge even more distinctly--without Scott Hamilton providing high-pitched commentary.

As one might expect of a show made in North America, Sale and Pelletier receive the majority of camera time, and their moves are always smooth. Berezhnaya and Sikharulidze are shown falling a lot in practice. And yet the Russians’ story, especially Berezhnaya’s comeback from a life-threatening injury, is in some ways the more compelling. Happily, the cheers of a packed stadium in Edmonton, the city in which Sale and Pelletier trained before the Games, are just as enthusiastic for both pairs.